Malaysia Focus Month

Members of civil society across Malaysia came together to campaign to end the immigration detention of children.

Though there are no official statistics, organisations are aware that children are regularly detained in many of the twelve immigration detention centres across Malaysia.

Led by youth, campaigners consulted university students for their take on the issue, which led to choosing the theme FREEDOM IS: asking the public: what does freedom mean to you?

Children from refugee and non-refugee backgrounds attended a youth camp aimed at building closer ties between the two groups.

The children from this camp prepared a performance based on “Hear Our Voices” and appeared on BFM to speak about their experiences (see below)

The ongoing sale of 3000 postcards which had “Freedom is:” on one side, asking the public to write what freedom means to them, which will be sent to the government
running a booth at an NGO fair at a university, at which student volunteers spoke about child immigration detention, sold postcards and collected video statements from other students. In the video statements, students were asked what freedom means for them, and their responses were used in the campaign video “Freedom is:”